South Africa has renewed pressure on TikTok to include its creators in the platform’s Creator Rewards Programme, saying local content producers are driving engagement but do not have access to the same direct monetisation opportunities available in some other markets.
Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi said his department had recently raised the issue with a TikTok vice president during a meeting with the company.
Malatsi said South African creators could attract hundreds of thousands or millions of views while remaining excluded from the programme because it is not currently available in Africa.
TikTok has pointed to other ways creators can earn money, including virtual gifts from viewers during livestreams and in comments, as well as brand partnerships and other commercial opportunities.
Malatsi has argued that these alternatives do not address the specific issue of access to the Creator Rewards Programme, which provides eligible creators in participating markets with direct rewards linked to the performance of qualifying content.
The dispute comes as TikTok’s reach in South Africa continues to grow. DataReportal, citing TikTok’s advertising data, estimated that the platform could reach 29.1 million adults in South Africa in late 2025, equivalent to 56.4% of the country’s internet users.
Its potential advertising reach increased by 7.27 million between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025, according to the data.
Malatsi first publicly called for TikTok to extend its creator rewards system to South Africa at the company’s Safer Internet Summit in Cape Town in March 2025. He said at the time that South Africa had more than 17 million active TikTok users and that local creators were contributing to global trends.
The issue gained further attention in 2026, when some South African creators called for a boycott of TikTok over the absence of the rewards programme.
TikTok has expanded other creator and commercial initiatives in South Africa, but the Creator Rewards Programme remains unavailable in Africa.
Malatsi’s latest engagement with TikTok leadership puts pressure on the company to address the gap between the platform’s growing audience in South Africa and the monetisation programmes available to creators in other markets.
